Doctor Who_ The King of Terror - Keith Topping [46]
‘I’m a bit out of practice,’ the Doctor noted with genuine regret. ‘But I’ll do what I can.’
‘We could do with some light so that I can see what I’m doing,’ Julia confessed.
The Doctor took out his penlight torch and shone it on to his hand with an apologetic shrug of the shoulders.
‘Well, it’s a start!’
Tegan and Milligan did what they could. Carrying supplies and helping to direct people who were simply suffering from cuts and bruises, or were stunned by the horror of what they had seen, to where they would be cared for. After half an hour the Doctor came to join them as they sat, exhausted, in the centre of the park.
‘I’m out of my league,’ said the Doctor sadly.
‘I think we all are.’ replied Tegan.
‘Medically I mean,’ continued the Doctor. ‘Most of the critically wounded have been taken off to hospital now. And many of them will live thanks to Dr Franklin. And no thanks to me.’
‘It’s going to take some time for these people to put their lives back together,’
noted Milligan as he looked around at the hundreds of people sitting wrapped in blankets with dazed, numb expressions on their faces. Then he stood up, 89
suddenly. ‘I don’t believe it,’ he said, running off towards a group of the injured.
‘Shell shock?’ asked Tegan.
‘I don’t think so,’ answered the Doctor as Milligan returned with two men.
One had an ugly gash on the top of his arm, though his companion appeared to be unhurt.
‘Doctor, Tegan, I’d like you to meet Lieutenant Mark Barrington and Captain Geoff Paynter.’
The Doctor stood and shook both men’s hands. ‘UNIT?’ he asked.
‘I knew you when you had curly hair and a big scarf, Doc,’ said Paynter happily as he looked the Doctor up and down, taking in his strange clothes.
‘Did you get lost on the way to the third test match, or something?’
‘It’s symbolic if somewhat unmysterious,’ said the Doctor simply. ‘A lot of people don’t seem to like it. Are you two all right?’
Paynter pointed to his partner. ‘Mark caught a bit of heavy metal in the shoulder and both of us have got Westminster cathedral’s bells ringing in our ears, but it could have been a lot worse.’
‘Indeed,’ replied the Doctor, looking at the carnage around him. ‘I take it you’re the Brigadier’s men on the inside.’
‘Right,’ said Barrington. ‘Not that we got very far inside but we did find something . . . ’ He paused and looked across at Paynter. ‘Shouldn’t we be doing this somewhere more private than here?’
‘Stuff that,’ said Paynter. ‘There’s a sodding great spaceship in InterCom, Doctor. Big as a house! We’ve got to tell the Brigadier. We need a special operations squad in here, we’ve got to close them down.’
‘Calm down, Captain,’ said the Doctor quickly. ‘I know there’s an extraterrestrial dimension. What we need to know now, is who they are and what they want.’
The UNIT Hercules transport plane was crossing the Rockies when Lethbridge-Stewart received the incoming videolink message from the Doctor and Tyrone.
The device made him nervous as did much of the cannibalised International Electromatics technology that UNIT had put to such excellent use. Rather as his grandmother had once considered the telephone to be ‘the devil’s work’.
He had just been settling down to read The Times and a promising article on the decision to begin the construction of the international space station in 2001. He had much catching up to do after three days at that dreary conference and this seemed the ideal opportunity. But the obituaries depressed him as he read about men younger than himself dying of heart disease and in car crashes. And when he started reading the bug-eyed ranting of some 90
whippersnapper politician named Hatch, he was for once actually delighted to be interrupted by UNIT business.
‘Spot of bother, Doctor?’ he asked as the videoscreen spluttered into life.
‘A trifle more than that, Brigadier. You didn’t mention the terrorists.’
Lethbridge-Stewart was surprised. ‘Those Sons of Nova-Scotia people? I didn’t think you’d want to be sidetracked